THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 11, 1996 TAG: 9601110329
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
Even at their worst, Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton could manage only a partial government shutdown. This week, the federal establishment saw what the real thing looks like.
It's white, as in snow, and it's deep, and it's everywhere. There was 18 inches of it in my front yard in Northern Virginia on Tuesday morning; then 4 more inches fell unexpectedly during the day.
The snow stopped government cold. Schools were out, offices were closed, the subways stopped for a while, even Congress went home. In the beginning it was beautiful and peaceful.
Now the city is getting stir crazy.
The omnipresent TV weathermen, whose relentless good cheer and excitement were engaging on Sunday, have become a nuisance. How dare they continue to smile while predicting still more snow, maybe with some sleet mixed in just for the hell of it?
By Tuesday - with the kids home all the time, our milk and juice supplies dwindling fast, the rented videos overdue and all of us getting on one another's nerves - we had to get out of the house.
So I cleaned off the car, shoveled the driveway and we loaded everyone in. Then we drove off - about 30 feet. Though I had turned the car around before the storm so we wouldn't have to back up and had cleared a path well into the street, there was no way our little sedan was going to get around the corner of our driveway onto an incline. In fact, we started sliding down the hill - sideways.
Then something remarkable happened. A neighbor I'd never met appeared with shovel in hand to help us. Maybe 25, he kept circling the car, shoveling snow from under each wheel, helping us push, then concurring in my judgment that we'd never get out and giving good advice on how I could get the thing back into the driveway.
That job finally done - after a good 40 minutes of serious work - he refused even a cup of hot cocoa in compensation, then trudged off looking for other hapless motorists. An hour or so later, the doorbell rang and there he was, a gallon of milk in hand, insisting that we take it. My wife tried to pay him, to no avail. ``My Allah will know I was good today,'' he told her.
Venturing out on foot later, I saw other samaritans, vigilantes of benevolence, digging out other neighbors. So much for the stereotype of cold, heartless, sterile suburbia.
More adventures followed Wednesday.
The bus line is close by, and there's a grocery and video store just a mile or so up the road, so at midmorning, the wife and I again set out for fresh provisions.
The bus was late, of course, but it was warm and the fare was less than half the usual rate. We got our groceries, survived a checkout line so long we weren't sure it would ever end, and the video store waived its overdue fees.
Things were going so well, they couldn't continue. When we got to the bus stop 10 minutes ahead of schedule, I left Ellen at the curb and went next door to a 7-Eleven to fetch some cocoa.
In the meantime, of course, the bus arrived and Ellen did the only sensible thing. She grabbed the groceries and got on. Knowing it would be an hour or more before the next one, I walked home. I fell once or twice on the slick streets, briefly joined another cheerful crew of shoveling samaritans, and got home just in time to see a snow plow turn the corner onto our street.
Even he got stuck for a while, but another plow pulled him out and they made three passes at the hill. They plowed down to the pavement next door, but the plow fell off the front of the truck when they were in front of our place.
So now, before the snow starts again, I'm going digging. MEMO: Dale Eisman is The Virginian-Pilot's Washington correspondent. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
With his wits and the help of neighbors, Washington correspondent
Dale Eisman is managing to survive the Blizzard of '96.
by CNB